Meth courier jailed

AUCKLAND: A man arrested at the Picton wharf in 2015 with more than $1 million of methamphetamine in his car has been sentenced to six years and eight months’ jail.

Stephen Harland was charged with possession of meth for supply after being caught driving off the Interislander ferry in September, 2015, as part of a major police sting targeting the drug’s supply into Canterbury.

He had picked the drugs up in Auckland the day before his arrest, from Rebels Outlaw motorcycle gang member Daryn Catley.

Catley gave him a bag with a shoe box inside and told him to drive it to Christchurch, where Catley would then take it back.

When police stopped the car at Picton, they found 1.1558kg of meth inside.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Justice John Fogarty said the scale of the meth seizure called for a long sentence, however Harland had pleaded guilty, had no previous convictions and shown genuine remorse.

He said Harland had also acted only as a courier and been ‘‘wilfully blind’’ by not looking inside the shoe box containing the drugs.

The police sting also led to cooffender Catley being arrested and sentenced to a nineyear jail term following an appearance in the High Court last week.

After Harland’s Interislander arrest, police launched raids on two homes where Catley had been staying.

This included a raid on the Rebel Outlaw’s Christchurch clubrooms, where they found cash, a small amount of meth and a sawnoff .22 rifle.

Next, they searched Catley’s former partner’s home in Auckland, seizing 12.5g of meth, $162,890 in cash and utensils to smoke meth. — NZN